IMPACT Portal

IMPACT Co-Curriculars

Co-Curriculars

The key to successful, impactful work is partnerships. This is true when implementing a final project, and it is true when hatching a new idea. Students working in multidisciplinary teams generate better ideas, and their work has more impact. The Center for Social Impact, along with many other centers, institutes, and schools across campus provide opportunities for students to engage on a co-curricular basis in competitions, challenges, and incubators. Below is a listing of the types of programs offered and their time requirements. All programs are open to Ross MBAs, but some are open to other students as well.

Fall 2017

The Innovation in Action: Solutions to Real World Challenges competition has two primary goals: 1) To empower students to innovate solutions that address public health and education problems, and 2) To create a safe environment to take risks and move beyond the classroom. This five-month competition will enable teams to move their idea from concept to reality.

Design for America encourages students to explore their ability to make a social impact through team oriented design work and collaboration with local partners. Come learn more about Design for America, our upcoming calendar of events, our community partne

This year’s competition celebrates 25 years of the William Davidson Institute’s focus on identifying, adapting and deploying best practices from the private sector to give emerging countries the blueprints for success in a market economy. William Davidson, a proud University of Michigan alumnus, business leader and philanthropic trailblazer, founded the Institute in 1992 with the following vision.

Meeting once per week with a small group of 4-6 peers, and utilizing a flexible, discussion-based curriculum, you will advance your leadership development and your group's by increasing self-knowledge, experimenting with new ways of leading, reflecting on results, and synthesizing learning. LDRx is co-created with students who are inspired to build community and habits of lifelong leadership development.

The +LAB brings together undergraduate and graduate students from across the university in a dynamic extracurricular learning environment designed to: 1) Immerse students in the theory and practice of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) and 2) Equip students to apply what they have learned to be organizational change agents

The Board Fellowship Program prepares graduate students for mission-driven leadership. Students develop project management and executive skills as board members of nonprofit organizations in Southeast Michigan. This multidisciplinary program provides graduate students in our partner schools with real-world insight into the workings and procedures of a nonprofit board, and enables students to contribute to the organization’s success while building the tools to deliver social impact.

The Michigan Business Challenge (MBC) is a campus-wide, multi-round business plan competition where student teams have the opportunity to win cash prizes totaling over $85,000, gain feedback from leaders in the business community, and expand their business network.

Whether you're passionate about mental health, inclusive education, sustainable energy, or something else entirely, our programs are for you. We provide workshops and events, access to mentors, and up to $20,000 in funding for your team. Most importantly, whether you're a beginner or an experienced innovator, you'll find a supportive community of like-minded students and mentors who want to help you succeed.

Each winter term students from a dozen U-M schools and colleges tackle a pressing cross-sector social issue currently facing the city of Detroit in this deep-dive competition. Finalists present their recommendations before a panel of community leaders, and the winning proposal receives a monetary award.

The competition takes the form of a 10-day consulting project in which teams of policy students compete to solve a challenge faced by a client in a relevant field. The event culminates in a showcase during which top teams present their solution to an audience and a panel of judges.

The Center for Social Impact believes in the power of bringing the capacity and skills of MBAs to social entrepreneurs in Michigan and around the country. Since its inaugural year in 2014, the Center for Social Impact has sponsored Ross student teams to participate in MBAs Across America, an organization that has sent groups of MBAs on a five-week road trip to work with visionary social entrepreneurs. Each team embarks on a five-week road trip across the country, spending each week with a different social entrepreneur along the way.

The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative invites undergraduate and graduate students to answer a key question for the field of entrepreneurship by analyzing our unique, global dataset on acceleration and early stage entrepreneurs. The competition is open to individual and team submissions from universities around the world.

Winter 2018

M2GATE is a team-based social entrepreneurship program that offers experiential learning and cross-cultural interactions with international peers through a virtual exchange. Through the eight-week program, your cross-cultural, six-person team will identify a social challenge or issue in the MENA region.

This event has been sponsored by Target for the past three years. During this case competition teams compete to win a grand prize up to $1000. The cases often surround the topics of diversity and inclusion, solving problems in the work place and many more! This event is open to all University of Michigan students.

Each summer, the Center awards competitive grants for social impact summer internships to MBAs and BBA juniors in the Ross School of Business as well as graduate students in the Ford School of Public Policy. Students completing internships in the nonprofit, public, or private sectors are eligible to apply as long as the organization has a clearly defined social mission.

Inspired by the spirit of U-M alumnus, Raoul Wallenberg, the Wallenberg Fellowship is awarded each year to a graduating senior of exceptional promise and accomplishment who is committed to service and the public good. The fellowship provides $25,000 to carry out an independent project of learning or exploration anywhere in the world during the year after graduation.